Scope

The Fourth International Conference "Dynamics of Systems on the Nanoscale" (DySoN 2016) will be held in Bad Ems, Germany during October 3-7, 2016 at the historical Häcker's Grand Hotel. The Conference will be followed on October 8-9 with the comprehensive training course on multiscale modelling of Meso-Bio-Nano (MBN) systems, their structure and dynamics with MBN Explorer and MBN Studio – the powerful and universal software being developed by MBN Research Center in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

The DySoN conference has been built upon a series of International Symposia "Atomic Cluster Collisions: structure and dynamics from the nuclear to the biological scale" (ISACC). During these meetings it has become clear that there is a need for an interdisciplinary conference covering a broader range of topics than just atomic cluster collisions, related to the Dynamics of Systems on a Nanoscale. Therefore, in 2010 the ISACC International Advisory Committee decided to launch a new conference series under the title "Dynamics of Systems on the Nanoscale". The first DySoN conference took place at the National Research Council, Rome, Italy in 2010, the second conference was held in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2012, the third one was held in Edinburgh, UK in 2014. DySoN 2016 is the fourth conference in this series.

The DySoN 2016 Conference will promote the growth and exchange of interdisciplinary scientific information on the structure formation and dynamics of animate and inanimate matter on the nanometre scale. There are many examples of complex many-body systems of micro- and nanometre scale size exhibiting unique features, properties and functions. These systems may have very different nature and origin, e.g. atomic and molecular clusters, nanostructures, ensembles of nanoparticles, nanomaterials, biomolecules, biomolecular and mesoscopic systems. A detailed understanding of the structure and dynamics of these systems on the nanometre scale is a difficult and fundamental task, the solution of which is necessary in numerous applications of nano- and bio- technology, material science and medicine.

Although mesoscopic, nano- and biomolecular systems differ in their nature and origin, a number of fundamental problems are common to all of them: What are the underlying principles of self-organization and self-assembly of matter at the micro- and nano-scale? Are these principles classical or quantum? How does function emerge at the nano-and the meso-scale in systems with different origins? What criteria govern the stability of these systems? How do their properties change as a function of size and composition? How are their properties altered by their environment? Seeking answers to these questions is at the core of a new interdisciplinary field that lies at the intersection of physics, chemistry and biology, a field now entitled Meso-Bio-Nano (MBN) Science.

Experimental, theoretical and applied aspects of these problems will be discussed at the DySoN 2016 Conference. Particular attention will be devoted to dynamical phenomena and many-body effects taking place in various MBN systems on the nanoscale, which include problems of structure formation, fusion and fission, collision and fragmentation, surfaces and interfaces, collective electron excitations, reactivity, nanoscale phase and morphological transitions, irradiation driven transformations of complex molecular systems and biodamage, channelling phenomena and many more.

Also the mini-workshop “Periodically bent crystals for crystalline undulators” held within the HORIZON 2020 RISE-PEARL-690991 project will be linked to DySoN 2016. The research areas represented by the mentioned European projects overlap strongly with the Topical Areas of the DySoN Conference.

Finally, DySoN 2016 will provide a platform to host discussions about current and future research challenges and initiatives within the DySoN Conference Topical Areas.